Last night saw the third race in a series of four at Audlem, with Jim Duffyand Gerard Lacey flying the flag for WVCC as Alan Kemp was a DNS due to a bad back i believe and Ewart Howkins Marshalling.
The race was switched to the shorter circuit due to road works on the usual longer course, this was 3nr 10 mile undulating laps.
There were two races, the first contained under 55s (with me in it), the second over 55s with Ged.
The race set of after about a mile and a half in neutral at quite a pace, which made me thank full of my 10 miles warm up, the course took some narrow lanes and some poor tarmac and the group generally stayed together for the first lap apart from the odd person pinging of the front only to be reeled back in again.
On the second lap one of the strong Mammoth boys got away with one of the 9 (yes nine) Audlem boys, this resulted in the remaining Mammoth team member and the remaining Audlem guys doing what they could on the front to slow the race down.
There were plenty of attack by various riders to try and bring them back but the gap remained around 20 -35 seconds.
On the last lap the rain began to fall and the roads became a bit greasy, fortunately, everyone stayed safe. The group began to fall out with each other as there was no joint effort to bring the break back (happens every week!). With about 5 or 6 miles to go, the remaining Mammoth guy and another Audlem guy chanced there arm and got about a 10 -15 second gap on the group.
A last ditch effort saw the second break brought back before the final 2 miles, then it was eyes out for the sprint which just fell short of catching the individual break at the line by a matter of a couple of metre i think.
I finished mid pack and was pleased with that as i was racing with the youngsters, average 25 MPH
In the over 55s, Ged was doing well and was in the main bunch with a group of about 10 or 12 up the road, until he got grit in his eye and had to ease of as he could see properly. He received some first aid after the race and was ok to drive home.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/833408939